


Like diamonds, full of surprises

by cirque



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Iliad - Homer
Genre: AKA How Cassandra Got Them Pesky Visions, Brother-Sister Relationships, Obligatory warning about creepy suggestive Greek gods, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She feels Apollo's call like she feels the warp of the river when she stands in up to her waist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like diamonds, full of surprises

**Author's Note:**

> There was going to be more to this, but then I decided there wasn't...
> 
> /////  
> 3/12/14 - Why does this fic have so many views? Is it being recc'd somewhere?

She feels Apollo's call like she feels the warp of the river when she stands in up to her waist. She feels it pull at her girlish clothes and she can no more disobey Apollo than she can fight the river's current. She thinks of the Styx as she follows the sound of his voice. She thinks one day she will die and will learn what lies beyond.

Helenus is at her side, but he does not hear what she hears. He follows because he has been bidden by their father to protect her and he grips his scythe with expert pressure. He will kill anyone who comes between them, this she knows without doubt, because he has been by her side and at her back since their days in the womb.

"Cassandra." His voice is hushed in the temple and she wants to tell him that Apollo doesn't care if they're quiet or not, but she doesn't. Apollo has ordered them both here; Helenus thinks they are here for some hidden knowledge. Cassandra suspects a trap.

In the end, they are both right.

"Cassandra." His voice is louder now, more urgent. "Cassandra, do you feel that?"

She does. She feels as though her blood is angling towards the far end of the room, as if her ears are hearing more than they have before, as if the hair on her arms is standing stark on end. Her palms itch and she looks down. Sweat, glistening on her hands. She wipes them on her dress.

"I do."

The temple is airy and open but still Cassandra is clammy. At the far end is an altar and, as they approach, they see a shadowy figure form behind it.

"Apollo." She says.

"Why are we here?" Helenus asks.

Shadowy Apollo raises his shadowy arms as if welcoming them.

They fall to their knees. It is partly piety, and partly because they have minimal control over their actions. Helenus drops his scythe as they fall, and Cassandra takes his hand.

"Children, try not to fear me." His mouth does not move when he speaks. Cassandra feels it would be foolish not to fear him; she knows the nature of the gods. She watches him and, even when half-cloaked, he is glorious. "You are here to learn a great thing. I have a gift to bestow upon you."

There are snakes on the ground; she sees them now, flittering toward her in lithe motions. They remind her of fish, skimming beneath the river surface. One curls about her ankle, another moves forward to lick at the sweaty palm of her hand. She does not shoo them away. She could not, even if she wanted to. Even her breath is still, her eyes on Apollo as though he has bewitched her. Perhaps he has.

Helenus ignores them. "My Lord, we are grateful for your gift."

Apollo says nothing, and Cassandra remembers Hector telling her that the gods are most silent right before they strike. She holds herself straighter. She is ready.

Apollo flicks each of his fingers, one by one, and as he does so the snakes twist closer to Cassandra and her brother, wrapping themselves around their stomachs, undulating up their arms. Cassandra feels a tail slip down the neck of her dress. She closes her eyes, but still she sees them.

The hissing mouths are so close to her ears that she feels rather than hears them approach her ear drums, tongues moving around the inner circle of both her ears. She feels them kiss at her eyes, screwed shut even as she tells herself Apollo would never harm her, not glorious Apollo, not her god.

"Are they poisonous?" Helenus manages to speak, snakes wound about his neck.

Her eyes are still closed and so she only hears Apollo move, hears him approach them on the floor, feels his cold and dusty hands touch her ears, her eyes, her forehead.

"Not poisonous," his echo voice appears inside her head. "But enchanted."

Her breath catches. She has never heard like this before. She has a sudden desire to hear more of Apollo. She feels him inside her head, nestling himself between her memories, and thinks that this must be a great gift indeed.

"When these snakes retreat they will have given you their secret, and mine; the gift of prophecy. You will see all, and know all, and it will serve you well."

Cassandra does not know what to say to this and so she, wisely, says nothing.

Helenus, at her back and by her side in everything, knows which words are right. "My Lord, we thank you, and we beseech you: what price do you ask for this gift?"

"I ask no price of you, dear Prince."

Cassandra hears the snake at her ear, feels its tail flick against her lips, tastes the salty scales coated with sand, and thinks Apollo is not telling the full truth.

Helenus must suspect too, because he pauses and she hears his breathing roughen. "And what price do you ask of my sister?"

The tail flicks across her lips again. It is dry and the snake hisses as she lets out her breath.

Cassandra knows. Cassandra has long since known the wants of men, mortal and immortal alike. Her mother tells her they all run toward the same desires, and her mother is wise. Cassandra thinks of the woman who lives to the West, desired by all who know her.

Cassandra knows what price Apollo asks.

She knows as surely as she feels him at her side, shadowy hands caressing her hair.

She knows.

She cannot allow him this.

He is her god and she loves him as strongly as she knows how to love, but she cannot give what he is asking, not here, not like this.

She also knows she cannot refuse. To refuse one god is to refuse them all, and to refuse all gods is to align oneself with the mutinous Titans.

Cassandra thinks of Semele, of Pandora, of Andromeda. There is no refusing the gods. There is only outwitting them.

She levels her breathing with Helenus's. He is her brother, whose life thread began in unison with hers. He is at her back and by her side in all things; he will not disappoint her now. She feels the exact moment his anger becomes too much. He huffs, and she thinks he will never be as good a warrior as Hector, because his emotions are too near to the surface.

"You cannot ask that of my sister and ask nothing of me. It is not right."

"Right?" Says Apollo, still in their heads. Cassandra hums in time to his voice. His voice is deeper than she has ever heard a man speak, it buzzes through her like thunder. She thinks it may not be too hard to love him, after all. Helenus shivers. "Who are you to say what is right and what is not? I have given you the greatest gift. Your sister ought to show me thanks."

"My Lord, she is young. We did not ask this gift of you. You gave it willingly."

Cassandra and Helenus both know that the gods give nothing without expecting something in return.

Apollo circles Cassandra; she feels the warmth of his body wax and wane around her. Her eyes are still shut tight against the snake's tongues.

"Look at me."

She cannot disobey him. When she opens her eyes, the snakes are entirely gone and, more worryingly, so is Helenus.

When she opens her eyes, Apollo is before her. His eyes are green, like hers.

When she opens her eyes, she sees a thousand things at once. Her memories, that he so freely walked among, are mixed with countless things that have not yet come to pass. She clutches her head as it begins to pound.

"This is your gift, my lord?"

"This is _your_ gift. And now-"

"I cannot." Her father would call her crazy, to refuse a god even as she looks into his eyes. His eyes are beautiful. It does not change her mind, though. "I will not."

"You will not?" She thinks he is mocking her.

She shakes her head. If he shall kill her, so be it.

 

Outside, Helenus waits for her. His dark hair has fallen into his eyes and she thinks he must be as tired as she. They are a long way from home.

"What happened?"

She doesn't answer him. She cannot. She isn't entirely sure what happened.

"Cassandra, what _happened_?"

She cannot.

"Look at me!"

She looks. He knows. He knows because, like she, he can see everything that has happened and everything that will happened. As they look at each other she thinks of Troy burning to pith from Greek fire.

"Helenus, do you see –?"

"Yes."

She sees her city burning even as her eyes are on the road ahead of her. She sees her mother weeping beside her dying children. She sees black ships and a monster of a man. She sees Paris, returned from the hills, come to doom them all.

Helenus sees it too. "We must not speak of this vision."

"No?"

"No. It will drive them mad with worry in Troy."

"Perhaps they should worry. They are going to die." She sees Polyxena fall to her death in tribute for a Greek soldier. She sees Hector slain, Andromache enslaved; she sees their son, who has not yet been born, tossed to death from the high wall. She sees Aeneas flee from the wreckage and she sees a city she knows will be called 'Rome'.

"All the more reason not to worry them."


End file.
